And after what I saw in yesterday's 5-4 loss, it better not be Brett Myers, either.
"I don't know who is going to start Saturday,'' Scott Eyre said.
"I'm not.''
Ah, don't be so sure, Scotty.
Here's what I do know: Manuel plays for today at this time of year. And he doesn't play scared. There was a theory yesterday that he was doing just that, unloading the entire revolver in an effort to rally from a 4-0 hole and win Game 2, fearful of playing the next two games in some ridiculous weather conditions in Colorado.
Why else would he pitch both Blanton and Happ? Why else would he run Lee, his complete-game winner of Game 1, for Matt Stairs?
To me, that's a guy who is not scared, who manages the way his team plays.
"Hard, let the chips fall where they may,'' Jayson Werth had described it the day before.
Manuel might have been the only one not holding his breath when Lee went in to pinch-run in the bottom of the ninth, representing the tying run, the potential for a close play at the plate as real as it was frightening.
Well, no, that's not right. Lee wasn't holding his breath, either.
"I was making moves out there that if I could have picked some other things to do, I would probably did it,'' said the manager.
It is fair to argue there were plenty of other things he could have done yesterday. But not many. He could have run Kyle Kendrick instead of Lee, but that would have burned a pitcher who might have come in handy had the game been tied in extra innings. He could have used Eyre, who replaced Happ with bases loaded and no one out in the seventh and allowed just a run - the winning one.
He had plenty of options that seemed better than Brett, who was all over the place, and right down the middle.
"You can write whatever you want to write, and you can voice your opinion and everything,'' Manuel said. "Sometimes those are chances you have to take . . . ''
